Northeastern appoints ‘founding dean’ of new College of Science

North­eastern Uni­ver­sity has appointed Dr. J. Murray Gibson to be the founding dean of its Col­lege of Sci­ence, one of three new, dis­tinct col­leges being launched by the uni­ver­sity this fall.

As the Col­lege of Science’s first dean, Gibson has the oppor­tu­nity to chart a new and inno­v­a­tive path, while building on Northeastern’s sig­nif­i­cant strengths across a range of sci­en­tific fields.

“J. Murray Gibson is an excep­tional sci­en­tist and scholar with an out­standing inter­na­tional rep­u­ta­tion,” said Stephen W. Director, provost and senior vice pres­i­dent for aca­d­emic affairs at North­eastern. “His accom­plish­ments at one of the world’s most pres­ti­gious sci­en­tific lab­o­ra­to­ries make him the per­fect can­di­date to lead our new Col­lege of Sci­ence. I’m proud to wel­come him to the North­eastern community.”

The Col­lege of Sci­ence will be com­prised of the fol­lowing aca­d­emic depart­ments: Biology, Chem­istry and Chem­ical Biology, Earth and Envi­ron­mental Sci­ence, Math­e­matics, Physics, and Psy­chology. It will also include inter­dis­ci­pli­nary pro­grams in Behav­ioral Neu­ro­science, Bio­chem­istry, Envi­ron­mental Studies, Lin­guis­tics and Marine Studies.

“The new Col­lege of Sci­ence will play a cen­tral role as North­eastern Uni­ver­sity pur­sues research across its pri­mary themes of health, secu­rity and sus­tain­ability,” said Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Aoun. “Dr. J. Murray Gibson has a proven track record of estab­lishing global part­ner­ships and working across dis­ci­plines. He will be a tremen­dous asset to North­eastern as we build on our lead­er­ship in co-​​op and use-​​inspired research.”

Born and raised in Scot­land, Gibson cur­rently holds a range of senior aca­d­emic posi­tions. He is the Director of Advanced Photon Source and Asso­ciate Lab­o­ra­tory Director of Argonne National Lab­o­ra­tory, as well as an adjunct pro­fessor at both the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois Urbana-​​Champaign and North­western Uni­ver­sity. Under his direc­tion, APS emerged as the most pro­duc­tive source of pro­tein struc­tures in the world and is a leader in x-​​ray studies of mate­rials under extreme con­di­tions. At Argonne National Lab­o­ra­tory, he spear­headed and secured funding for two major ini­tia­tives: The Center for Nanoscale Mate­rials and the national TEAM micro­scope projects.

In addi­tion to his posi­tions of aca­d­emic lead­er­ship, Dr. Gibson has been actively involved in industry — as a researcher and mentor for stu­dents com­pleting intern­ships. His first-​​hand knowl­edge of the power of expe­ri­en­tial learning and his knowl­edge of industry will be an asset to Northeastern.

He has pub­lished almost 200 journal arti­cles and is a fellow of the Amer­ican Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ences, the Amer­ican Phys­ical Society and the Royal Micro­scop­ical Society. He earned his BSc in nat­ural phi­los­ophy at the Uni­ver­sity of Aberdeen, Scot­land and his Ph.D. from the Uni­ver­sity of Cam­bridge, England.

Anchored by its sig­na­ture co-​​op pro­gram, North­eastern Uni­ver­sity is world renowned for its lead­er­ship in expe­ri­en­tial edu­ca­tion. North­eastern is also a leader in the pro­duc­tion of use-​​inspired research that meets global and soci­etal needs.

The new Col­lege of Sci­ence was cre­ated as part of a restruc­turing of the former Col­lege of Arts and Sci­ences and the Col­lege of Crim­inal Justice.

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